TRAVERSE Issue 45 - December 2024 | Page 55

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churches won us over despite the high number of tourists we ’ d become unaccustomed to . The cheerfulness of the mariachis infected us ; their huge guitars , traditional clothes and choirs resonated in the Allende gardens in front of the majestic cathedral .
When we began to see the valley in which the modern capital lies from the highway overpass , we began to understand why , starting from the urbanisation of the 1970s , the city has become one of the Mexican federal states . In the space of a few years the city went from eight to fourteen million inhabitants up to the current twenty-two which makes it one of the largest metropolises in the world .
The traffic appeared less chaotic than we thought until , taking a wrong turn , we ended up at a collectivos junction , the vans that serve as private transport to and from the city centre . It was hell , and we only
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